Talk:Harriet Jacobs/Archive 1

Neutral point of view
"Could these descrepancies be clues to the past controversies surrounding the authenticity of Jacobs's writings? These inaccuracies can be clarified on page 258 and 259 of the Harvard edition of "Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl" which was edited and annotated by Dr. Jean Fagan Yellin, where Jacobs writes to Amy Post expalining her fabrications." This seems really out of place for wikipedia, don't know what this falls under but it is strange. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.183.142.21 (talk) 09:01, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Article name?
Naming conventions seem to suggest that common names are most appropriate for article names. Consider that, along with number of pages linked to the redirect "Harriet Jacobs" vs "Harriet Ann Jacobs", I suggest we rename this page "Harriet Jacobs", and leave "Harriet Ann Jacobs" as the redirect. Any thoughts? --Midnightdreary (talk) 15:58, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Shorten article
The article needs to be modified to read less like a listing of letter summaries and more like an encyclopedia account. Have worked on this, but need to do more.--Parkwells (talk) 20:32, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree, I plan to work on it a little bit also, just revert anything I do that you don't like or mention it on the talk page. I'll be watching. - Josette (talk) 20:55, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with some of the changes to the lede. Female slaves endured more then just sexual abuse.  That is why I used the words "sexual harassment and abuse". That needs to be made more clear. - Josette (talk) 21:49, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I tried to address the issue of the text being too long and looking like a listing of Jacobs's letters - hope you like the result. I followed the lead of Yellin's biography in determining the important points in Jacobs's life. I also corrected some errors of the old text: (1) The public speaker of early 1867 was Louisa, not her mother. (2) Louisa would have liked to dedicate her life to teaching, but most of the time was not able to do so. She was teaching only for short periods (less than a year) in Alexandria and Savannah, and afterwards again for a short time at Howard University. (3) The problem in Georgia after the war was not "prejudice", it was murder and terror.Rsk6400 (talk) 19:40, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

The use of the word mulatto is offensive. Especially in this context.
In the second paragraph. I actually dont know how to change that, but I feel like using a categorization of slavery in the bio of an escaped slave is just wrong. Can we change that to mixed, mixed race, multiracial, almost anything other than mulatto? Welcome thoughts, and / or suggestions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.80.253.3 (talk) 17:32, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

This article reads like a middle school book report. Is it possible to clean it up? Sentences like "A school was also opened for freed children to go and get an education." are ridiculous. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.174.97.34 (talk) 14:17, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * What exactly is wrong with that sentence? -Xcuref1endx (talk) 06:59, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Is African American the right term?
I am by no means an expert on ethnic terminology so I might be totally wrong about this, but I am not sure if African American is the correct term to describe her ethnicity, as she was mixed race. I know that in the 19th century she would have been classified as black but I am not sure if that should be used as a standard to describe her ethnicity now. 208.180.91.218 (talk) 04:53, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Harriet Ann Jacobs. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090122050428/http://www.yale.edu/glc/harriet/ to http://www.yale.edu/glc/harriet/

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Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 12:51, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Errors in the lead
The lead has several problems:

First, her daughter and her brother were speakers, but she herself was not. (Yellin's biography, p. 157)

Second, her first printed texts were letters to newspapers, but those letters were not "portions of her book". The reference given is to p.120-121 of Yellin's biography which is lying on my desk at this moment. Pages 120-121 deal with her efforts to make Beecher Stowe tell her story (I have the hardcover edition, while the reference is to the paperback, but the page numbers are identical in both editions - I have checked).

Third, the words "being raped at least twice" do not fit well into the structure of the sentence, the rapes are not mentioned in the text below, and - which is most important - are not mentioned in her autobiography. The children are from a consensual relationship, as is stated in the text, and that is in accord with her autobiography.

I already corrected the second error, but that has been reverted. Since I don't like edit wars, I will wait some days before I touch the article again, hoping for some discussion in the mean time. Rsk6400 (talk) 15:53, 20 December 2019 (UTC)